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E-Commerce · head to head

3dcart vs Magento

3dcart logo

3dcart

E-Commerce

All-in-one ecommerce platform for online retailers

From
$19/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Magento logo

Magento

E-Commerce

Open core commerce platform, free as Magento Open Source and licensed by revenue as Adobe Commerce

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Magento has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: 3dcart limited scalability compared to enterprise e-commerce platforms; Magento it is open core rather than open source, so B2B, customer segmentation, content staging and the Adobe analytics and recommendation services sit behind the Adobe Commerce licence, and discovering that mid-project converts a free platform into a revenue-banded contract.
  • They diverge on capability: 3dcart covers Store builder, Magento covers Two editions.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which 3dcart and Magento actually diverge.

Attributes where 3dcart and Magento differ
Attribute3dcartMagento
Starting price$19/monthFree
Pricing modelUnknownopen-source
Free tierNoYes
Founded19972008

Identical on both: platforms (Web), user rating (Not yet rated), category (E-Commerce).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in 3dcart

  • Store builder
  • Unlimited products
  • Shopping cart
  • Payment processing
  • Inventory management
  • Email marketing
  • SEO optimization
  • Mobile responsive

Only in Magento

  • Two editions
  • Complex catalogue handling
  • Multi-store and multi-website
  • Native B2B in the paid edition
  • Multi-currency and multi-region
  • Composer module system
  • GraphQL and REST APIs
  • Hyva and Mage-OS ecosystem

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

3dcart

  • Building multi-channel stores across Facebook, eBay, Amazon in parallelnot Magento
  • Recovering abandoned shopping carts with automated email sequencesnot Magento
  • Calculating real-time shipping costs and integrating carrier APIsnot Magento
  • Protecting payment processing with VISA PCI certificationnot Magento

Magento

  • A retailer with tens of thousands of SKUs and attribute-heavy catalogue logic that SaaS platforms restrictnot 3dcart
  • A multi-brand or multi-region group needing separate websites, currencies and tax treatment from one back officenot 3dcart
  • A B2B seller needing company accounts, negotiated pricing and quoting inside the storefrontnot 3dcart
  • An enterprise with an in-house or retained development team that treats commerce as owned softwarenot 3dcart

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

3dcart

  • Limited scalability compared to enterprise e-commerce platforms
  • Payment processing tied to Shift4 Payments after acquisition
  • Fewer advanced marketing and analytics features than competitors

Magento

  • It is open core rather than open source, so B2B, customer segmentation, content staging and the Adobe analytics and recommendation services sit behind the Adobe Commerce licence, and discovering that mid-project converts a free platform into a revenue-banded contract.
  • The Adobe Commerce licence is priced on bands of gross merchandise value, so the platform bill increases as the store succeeds and is largely unrelated to the infrastructure or support you consume.
  • A production installation needs a search engine, a cache, a reverse proxy, a message queue and a database tuned together, so hosting is a DevOps engagement rather than a plan, and the first serious traffic event is where under-sizing becomes visible.
  • Minor version upgrades regularly break third party modules, so staying current means a regression testing and remediation project several times a year, and merchants who skip upgrades to avoid that end up running software with unpatched vulnerabilities.
  • The specialist developer market is small and expensive relative to other platforms, so an agency retainer becomes a permanent operating cost and losing that agency is a genuine business continuity problem rather than a procurement inconvenience.

Pricing, plan by plan

3dcart

$19/month
  • Starter$19/month
    • Unlimited products
    • Basic templates
    • Email support

Magento

Free
  • Magento Open SourceFree
    • Unlimited products
    • Multiple storefronts
    • Advanced marketing
  • Adobe Commerce$20000/year
    • All Open Source features
    • 24/7 enterprise support
    • Managed cloud hosting

Which should you pick?

Choose 3dcart if

  • You need store builder.
  • You also want unlimited products.
3dcart review

Choose Magento if

  • You need two editions.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want complex catalogue handling.
Magento review

Questions people ask

Is 3dcart or Magento better?
Neither clearly leads. 3dcart starts at $19/month and Magento at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, 3dcart or Magento?
Magento has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $19/month for 3dcart and Free for Magento.
Does 3dcart or Magento run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Magento for free?
Yes. Magento has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. 3dcart starts at $19/month.
What is 3dcart best used for?
3dcart is most often used for building multi-channel stores across facebook, ebay, amazon in parallel, recovering abandoned shopping carts with automated email sequences, calculating real-time shipping costs and integrating carrier apis, protecting payment processing with visa pci certification. Of those, building multi-channel stores across facebook, ebay, amazon in parallel and recovering abandoned shopping carts with automated email sequences are not what Magento is typically brought in for.
What can 3dcart do that Magento cannot?
3dcart covers Store builder, Unlimited products, Shopping cart, Payment processing. Magento covers Two editions, Complex catalogue handling, Multi-store and multi-website, Native B2B in the paid edition.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

3dcart: What is the starting price for 3dcart?

3dcart (now Shift4Shop) starts at $19/month with no setup fees, transaction fees, or hidden fees.

Source
Magento: Is Magento free?

Magento Open Source is. Adobe Commerce is not, and it holds back B2B, segmentation, content staging and the Adobe analytics and recommendation layer. Establish which edition a requirement needs before you commit.

3dcart: Does 3dcart include hosting?

Yes. 3dcart includes web hosting, domain support, and built-in website building tools with no separate hosting costs.

Source
Magento: How is Adobe Commerce priced?

On bands of gross merchandise value, so the licence grows with revenue rather than with usage. Model it against your three year forecast, not this year's turnover.

3dcart: What happened to 3dcart?

Shift4 Payments acquired 3dcart in November 2020. The platform is now operated under the name Shift4Shop but maintains the same core functionality and pricing.

Source
Magento: What does it really cost to run?

Licence if applicable, plus tuned infrastructure, plus a specialist agency or in-house team. For most deployments the people and hosting exceed the licence.

3dcart: Does 3dcart offer free templates?

Yes. 3dcart provides dozens of professionally designed, industry-specific templates that are mobile-friendly, SEO optimized, and highly customizable.

Source
Magento: Why do agencies keep mentioning Hyva?

The stock front end stack is slow to develop against, so Hyva, a commercially licensed replacement front end, has become a common default. It is another licence to budget for.

3dcart: What payment methods does 3dcart support?

3dcart integrates with multiple payment gateways including Shift4 Payments, Stripe, PayPal, and other major payment processors.

Source
Magento: What happened with Magento 1?

It reached end of life and left merchants on unsupported, unpatched software facing a full replatform. It is the reference point for how long to assume support for any edition you adopt.

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